Wednesday Walk: Christmas Movie ALTs
Looking at beloved Christmas movies through new lens
I know some of my writing has been on the heavier side lately. With the winter solstice tomorrow, we will be at the darkest point of the year, so I thought I would present something a little lighter.
Usually on Wednesdays, I bring together a smattering of unrelated topics and share interesting articles, videos, and more in a grab bag style. Today, I’m going to share three variations on the same topic: Christmas and holiday movies.
In my house, Christmas movies have been playing on repeat since about October. My kids will watch Elf in any season and they’ve recently become obsessed with the Home Alone multiverse, which I think spans five or six films now. They also love perennial classics like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman. Even though we limit their media consumption, when given a choice, they seem to always gravitate to Christmas titles.
Of course, many of these movies are also films that I grew up watching on repeat too, so they have formed well worn grooves in my brain. I can recite many of them line by line. Which is why it can be nice to find a different take on the familiar.
If you too have both a soft spot and a sore spot for holiday classics, I wanted to offer some alternatives that are still very nostalgic but provide an alternate lens on the original versions.
Lost without a Protagonist
Somehow, my kids and I recently stumbled upon a YouTube video titled "Home Alone 2 Minus Kevin” which is exactly what it sounds like. User NowNowBoys (who I have never heard of but who have 101,000 followers, so maybe you have) meticulously re-edited Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, removing any shots with Macaulay Culkin. My kids have not stopped talking about it, and we’ve only watched about half of it so far. The video was posted to YouTube nine years ago and has more than 38 million views!
It feels a bit like a film school experiment- to examine how a narrative functions without its central protagonist. The movie goes from 120 minutes down to 43, giving a sense of just how prominent Mac was in the film. I once heard him in an interview describe these movies as essentially Castaway with a little kid because of the number of scenes where he’s acting against nobody and delivering monologues.
The YouTube cutdown also brought up some fundamental questions for me: namely who is Kevin? While any shots that involve Culkin are excised, that doesn’t mean surrounding shots have been removed. Kevin’s choir concert at the beginning of the film is quite brief, but his parents still remark that “Kevin’s solo is coming up” before the concert erupts into unmotivated chaos.
Should any scene that even references Kevin have been excised instead?
I also found myself questioning the rules of the exercise. While Kevin is never seen, it does not mean that his perspective is missing. There are several shots which are effectively first person points of view where the camera is acting as Kevin’s eyes: panning across the airplane cabin looking for his family, seeing the Manhattan skyline for the first time. If we’re seeing the film through Kevin’s eyes, isn’t Kevin still there?
Now granted, part of my job is to analyze the meaning behind camera angles and edits, so I’m quite used to overthinking little details like this.
If you’re an over thinker like me, there’s a lot to digest. Check it out!
If you’re somebody who likes to kick back and watch a movie without thinking about it, probably better to just rewatch the original (trigger warning: it does have a Donald Trump cameo, well, except in Canada.)
(One programming note: the YouTube video seems to have a few spots where the audio track drops out for a few seconds. Just stick with it- it does eventually come back).
It’s an Auditory Life
I didn’t grow up with It’s a Wonderful Life, but for my wife, it was an annual Christmas Eve tradition to watch the classic film. The first time I watched it, I was taken aback by the opening scenes where “angels” (but really stars that light up) talk with each other in Heaven. But by the time we reached the end, I was sobbing and hooked.
My kids are less enamored with George Bailey than their parents, which means we don’t get to watch the film every year. But that hasn’t stopped me from experiencing it during this season.
More than a decade ago, I discovered some old radio shows on the iTunes Store (back when we purchased individual songs in the days before streaming) and they have become some of my favorite things to listen to on long car rides. The whole album that I purchased years ago is also streaming now on Spotify.
My favorite among the bunch is It’s a Wonderful Life, which was performed on the Lux Radio Theater in 1947. Both Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed reprise their roles from the film in the radio recording.
There’s a lot that really interests me about the radio version of the classic film, first and foremost, how they tell what is effectively a visual story without any visual elements. The writers found clever adaptations to the script that allow the listener to imagine what is happening in the story without needing to see anything. One big element is that Zuzu’s petals, flowers that Jimmy Stewart had in his pocket from his daughter in the film, are rewritten as Zuzu’s bell, allowing for an aural element that’s equally as compelling (and thematically appropriate).
What’s also interesting is how they condensed the story into an hour-long radio show (including commercial breaks), down from the film’s runtime of 2 hours and 10 minutes. Even though the radio play is half the length and omits several characters and scenes, the essence of the story is still strong and nothing feels shortchanged.
The original commercial breaks, featuring heavily sexist ads about Lux Toilet Soap are also still present in some of the recordings (they don’t seem to be in the YouTube link above, but are on Spotify). These ads describe the glamour of 1940s Hollywood through the perspective of star’s love of soap flakes. It’s a time capsule that… doesn’t age as well.
I recently played the full It’s A Wonderful Life radio show while doing some work in my wood shop and it was great ambient sound for working.
Bonus: There’s an equally compelling version of Miracle on 34th Street from 1948 starring Maureen O’Hara, John Payne, and Edmund Gwenn. Sadly, Natalie Wood did not reprise her role in the radio version.
I’m Singing
For both of my kids’ childhoods, Elf has been a constant. They have been watching the 2003 movie on repeat for years. I can quote it at length. And I mean the obscure stuff like: “I don’t know, Connie, I’ve never declawed kittens before.” Yeah.
Elf fever has reached a high point in pop culture in recent years, but before merchandise was readily available, we had ordered my daughter some Wendy’s kids meal toys off eBay that had been offered when the movie debuted. They’re interesting.
Not long ago, my kids discovered Elf: Buddy's Musical Christmas, which was an NBC made for TV special based on the original film and adapted from the Broadway musical. It has fast become a staple around here.
Sadly, the only cast member who reprises their role in the musical version is Ed Asner as Santa (although could anybody else really play that part?). But the new cast includes folks like Jim Parsons, Mark Hamill, and Kate Micucci.
Elf: Buddy’s Musical Christmas is also a claymation film done in the style of the original Rankin-Bass films from the 1960s like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. It’s pretty impressive watching some of the behind the scenes videos of the making of this special, as it was pretty elaborate and was all done in stop motion.
I wouldn’t rate Elf: Buddy’s Musical Christmas ahead of the original Elf by any means, but in the spirit of a strange YouTube cutdown of Home Alone or a radio version of a film, it’s a good alternative take on the original story that has a charm and spirit all its own. Plus it allows my kids to get an Elf fix without having to watch the same movie each time.
It’s available to rent or purchase on most other streaming video platforms like Amazon, YouTube, or Apple TV.
What are your favorite holiday movies? And do you know of any other strange, alternate versions of classic films like I called out here? Have you seen any of these films or listened to any of the radio shows? What did you think? I’d love to hear from you in the comments!
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Other Wednesday Walks
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